Taught By

François Dermange

Professeur d'éthique

Ghislain Waterlot

Professeur d'éthique et de philosophie

Transcript

We are here today at Plainpalais Plain, in the center of the city, where we'll be talking about Kant's legacy and influence on contemporary ethical philosophy. Although Kant's ideas can appear rather abstract, they actually affect the lives of every person you see passing behind me this morning. We are all children of the Enlightenment. Our attachment to freedom, to thinking for ourselves, our refusal to let others, simply because we are told they have some special claim to truth, impose their moral standards on us -- all this comes from the Enlightenment, and from Immanuel Kant in particular. Today, we think of ethics post-metaphysically -- that is, we accept only that which has been established through argument, through reasons we find convincing. We are all attached to autonomy, to the idea that we must think for ourselves. We believe that we are worthy of respect and owe others respects as well. All these issues -- which are actually of a practical nature -- come from the Enlightenment. Some Western democracies have a particularly deep-seated Kantian heritage. Democracies can be viewed from two interrelated standpoints. One is the republican standpoint, in which political decisions and institutions are structured so as to depend on the the will of the people alone. The people is the supreme authority by virtue of its freely-made decisions. The other standpoint says that the people's sovereignty is connected, even conditioned, by the laws of freedom: what we call human rights and the right of peoples to self-determination, to decide their own destiny. The interrelation of these standpoints, or poles, -- the republican tradition and the rights tradition -- is part of Kant's legacy. Recall: we are free only when we live by duty. And our duty, as expressed by the categorical imperative, is to recognize all humans as our equals. So the legacy of the Enlightenment, and of Kant in particular, is alive and well in the daily life of our democracies. Yet, for over a century now, Kant's ideas have been the object of numerous cogent critiques from a variety of directions. Let's look at how thinkers in the Kantian tradition, his modern-day disciples, have tried to reformulate his doctrine in the context of today's times. To do so, we'll focus on two major critiques of Kant and the responses of his intellectual heirs. The first major critique of Kant's system focuses on conscience and asks: is it really self-evident, can we be sure, is it even possible, that our conscience within us is the voice of duty? Is conscience really the vehicle of duty within us, the reason we choose to do our duty? This critique led to a response from the Frankfurt School and the creation of what we call Discourse Ethics, the major figures of which are Jürgen Habermas and Karl-Otto Apel. The other major critique of Kant says that we are much more aware, nowadays, of the fragility of our world than we were a couple centuries ago, particularly with the rise of science and technology, and should therefore be seeking answers that go beyond our individual intentions and will. The world's fragile state requires a new concept of responsibility based not merely on what we wish or intend, but that includes what needs to be done in order to ensure that future generations can continue to live in this world, alongside all the other living beings on Earth. The main proponent of this philosophy is Hans Jonas, whose <i>The Imperative of Responsibility</i> (1979) was the best-selling work of philosophy of the 20th century. Finally, we'll discuss another critique of Kant, which questions the place of the political in his thought. Despite the profound Kantian heritage in liberal democracy, do certain important aspects of contemporary life -- the rise of new economic rationales, globalization, etc. -- not require us to rethink the universalist ideals of the Enlightenment? Here we'll be delving into the ideas of the late French philosopher Paul Ricoeur. So that's the outline of this week's lesson. We hope you'll enjoy it and we look forward to your participation and feedback.

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